Dive Brief:
- Native, the personal care brand marketed by Procter & Gamble, is producing a 50-episode microdrama inspired by soap operas, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
- The scripted content series, titled “The Golden Pear Affair,” will premiere early next year across major social platforms before expanding into a proprietary app experience. The launch will follow Native introducing a limited-edition Global Flavors collection on its website and at Target later in December.
- “The Golden Pear Affair” stars two actors well-known for their microdrama work and was made in collaboration with P&G Studios, Dentsu Entertainment and Pixie USA. The companies claim this is the first branded, feature-length “microsoap” to debut in the U.S., a market where the ultra short-form storytelling format continues to gain traction.
Dive Insight:
P&G’s Native brand is tapping into budding consumer interest in microdramas, a quick-hit, vertical video format catering to mobile-first viewing habits. Native is thematically tying the soapy flare of serialized microdramas to a product portfolio that spans deodorants, hand soaps, moisturizers and shampoos that boast “clean” formulas.
“This microsoap showcases our commitment to innovation as we strive to delight consumers while fueling growth for Native,” said Anna Saalfeld, head of P&G Studios, in a press statement. “By blending classic brand storytelling with the ever-evolving landscape of mobile entertainment, we’re honoring the soap opera format P&G helped pioneer and optimizing it for a vertical, social-first world.”
Microdramas are popular in international markets like China, but have seen larger adoption in the U.S. as people spend more time consuming content on their phones. The microdrama category is expected to generate $11 billion in global revenue this year, propelled by subscriptions and transaction payments, according to Omdia research cited in the release.
A trailer for “The Golden Pear Affair” will drop in January, with the series rolling out not long after. Details on the plot were scarce, but the logline promises an adventure-romance packed with cliff-hangers and thematic inspiration from Native’s commitment to using clean ingredients. “Every scent hides a secret,” reads a poster. The content stars Nick Ritacco and Alyona Real, a pair of actors who have accrued fan bases for their past microdrama work.
Parent P&G, which acquired Native in 2017, is aligning the concept with a history of marketing around soap operas. The company helped innovate the sponsorship model for pre-war radio soaps and has continued to work around the genre into today. Dentsu for its part is building out a stronger foothold in the emergent microdrama space, with its venture arm recently investing in the short-form drama platform Emole.
Other brands have jumped on the microdrama trend to bolster their social-first strategies. Maybelline for the holidays is promoting its Instant Eraser Concealer with a twisty five-part series featuring the stars of Netflix’s “Hot Frosty.”
Informa, which owns a controlling stake in Informa TechTarget, the publisher behind Marketing Dive, is also invested in Omdia. Informa has no influence over Marketing Dive’s coverage.
